As the recession bites, ministers are keen to ensure the UK emerges from the downturn with a better-skilled and more entrepreneurial workforce. The government predicts most opportunities will be in science and technology, with 2.9m jobs created in these fields by 2017. But many people still find science too difficult and elitist. Although the science minister, Lord Drayson, has enlisted celebrities such as Terry Pratchett to challenge this image, there is a recognition that more needs to be done to stimulate science at university level.

This makes the recent decision by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to award £250m for 44 new centres of doctoral training all the more important. Announcing the funding, Drayson, said: "Britain faces many challenges in the 21st century, and needs scientists and engineers with the right skills to find answers to these challenges, build a strong economy and keep us globally competitive. The EPSRC's doctoral training centres will provide a new wave of engineers and scientists to do the job."

Starting this October, each centre will fund 10 PhD students from a variety of disciplines and, in all, the EPSRC expects the centres will finance 2,000 doctorates over five years. In addition to research, students will receive extensive business training and skills. According to David Reid, head of communications at the EPSRC, this is the top priority for academic departments and industry. "We need scientists and engineers who lead their field, but have the business skills to take their ideas to market," he says.

Five institutions got the bulk of the funding. University College London will have seven centres, Bristol four, while Oxford, Imperial College, Southampton and Manchester universities will each have three.

Bernard Buxton, the dean of engineering sciences at UCL, is a fan of the initiative. "If you have a centre, you have critical mass," he says. "Engineering is creativity in several straitjackets. It has to have a financial use, somebody must be prepared to pay for it, it has to be socially acceptable, able to be produced and there has to be a market for it."

Each centre will have a particular research bias: industrial, problem-based, or what Reid calls "blue-skies thinking", with skills training tailored accordingly. In the industrial centres, students will spend a year in industry. Those working on specific problems, such as how to improve healthcare, will receive training in understanding the broader impact of their research. "It's about creating really good scientists who are more engaged with society," says Reid. The aim of the blue-skies centres, meanwhile, is to work across disciplines to tackle potential issues in the future.

Professor Kevin Booker-Milburn, director of the holistic doctoral training centre in chemical synthesis at Bristol University, believes the funding will bring big economic benefits: "Chemical synthesis is of huge significance as it contributes to so many materials found in everyday life. Our centre will train PhD students with enhanced team-working and problem-solving skills, who will create greener and more efficient processes and ensure the UK maintains its competitive position as the place for innovative and creative research."

Unlike traditional "lone scholar" PhDs, students will work together, on a multi-disciplinary basis, to tackle global issues such as energy security and the ageing population. Six centres will specialise in digital technologies and media, while five will look at nanotechnology. Others will study simulation, photonics and innovations in physics, engineering and chemistry.

Two centres, both at Manchester University, are for nuclear sciences. Professor Jon Billowes, head of the industrial doctorate centre in nuclear engineering, says: "The programme will help to fill skills gaps in nuclear-related disciplines and ensure that future nuclear plants are regulated, built and operated safely and efficiently."

Similarly, the government's desire to stimulate renewable energy and sustainability means the EPSRC was keen to fund cross-cutting research in these areas.

Professor Hazim Awbi, director of the Centre for Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments at Reading University, says: "Meeting the challenges of climate change and reducing CO2 emissions will require a shift in the way buildings are designed, constructed and operated. This centre will train highly skilled research engineers, who are prepared to challenge deep-rooted traditions in some UK construction industries."

• This article was amended on Saturday 7 February 2009. Southampton University will have three of the 44 new doctoral training centres to be funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, not one or two as we implied in the report above. This has been corrected.